Thorp managed to find out that owners of gambling houses gave their officials rather strict directions with regard to the strategies which they should stick to in the game with visitors. Control over fulfillment of these directions had its initial aim to prevent from a frame-up of a croupier with the rest of the gamblers, a chance of which could not be excluded. Assigned for a croupier strict rules determining his game strategy really substantially reduced a probability of such a frame-up, but on the other hand, allowed an advanced” gambler to rather adequately reveal the essence of this strategy and effectively oppose it. For unlike a croupier a gambler needn’t show the first of the received cards, as well as isn’t enchained by any strict rules as regards his strategy, that is why flexibly changing his behavior he can confuse a croupier. For example, Thorp found out that practically in all gambling houses of Nevada State croupiers were strictly ordered to keep away from a widow in case the amount of points in his cards exceeded or was equal to 17, and a player, from our mathematician’s point of view did not have to miss an opportunity to make use of the knowledge of even some aspects of a croupier’s strategy for achievement of his aims. Thus, those advantages which had an official of a gambling house from the start (as we already know, he is not obliged to open his cards at the end of the game), can be compensated to a certain degree for the knowledge of a player about the strategic “tunnel vision” of a croupier.

Besides, as has been mentioned, Thorp, while building his strategy presumed that cards were not often shuffled, in particular, if after finishing of a regular game there were still cards left in a pack, a croupier did not collect the thrown-away by the gamblers cards but dealt them anew (and the next game was played), and only after complete exhaustion of a pack, an official of a gambling house collected all the cards, thoroughly shuffled them and a new cycle” began. Naturally, if a gambler had a good memory he could change his strategy depending on the knowledge of the cards which had gone out of the game, and what cards could still be counted upon. It is important to remember that a croupier himself who was to strictly follow the directions of the casino’s owners practically without changing his strategy!

Thorp set himself a task to formulate the rules which would allow him to calculate probabilities of taking out one or another card out of an incomplete pack. Knowing these probabilities a gambler could already with reasonable assurance draw cards from the widow without being too much afraid of a pip out”, and besides, on the basis of the knowledge of some aspects of a croupier’s strategy to make suppositions about those cards which he had, and other gamblers as well. Naturally, as a gambler was to make a decision with regard to a widow very quickly, the sought rules for calculation of probabilities were to be rather simple for a gambler to be able to use them in mind” with the help of neither a calculator, nor a pen and paper (even if we suppose that a gambler will be given a chance to do calculation on paper, it will certainly arise suspicion). Edward Thorp managed to solve this mathematical problem having created rather simple algorithms for calculation of probabilities of taking out of one or another card from a pack, and using them to build a strategy of the game of twenty-one which would not be very complicated, allowing a gambler to considerably increase his chances of winning!

As the Hungarian mathematician A.Reni states after a few days of presenting his report on the obtained results at the meeting of the American Maths Society in 1960 in Washington Thorp received from a businessman a letter with a check for 1 thousand dollars intended for checking of a winning strategy in practice. Thorp accepted the check and having learnt the formulated by him rules left for Nevada to try his discovery. The trial went well: less than after two hours Thorp won 17 thousand dollars.

Needless to say, the owner of a gambling house didn’t share Thorp and his companion’s delight with regard to a successful comeout of the trial and the next day did his best to prevent Thorp from joining in the game. Later on Thorp tried to penetrate into other gambling houses, but the news of him had already spread far and wide, so that the doors of all the gambling houses appeared to be closed for him. Several times having adjusted a fake beard or having got a make up of a Chinese, Thorp managed to get to the gaming-table, but in any disguise his constant gain invariably gave him away. Thorp had to refuse from further checking of the strategy developed by him”. Though “additional checks” were necessary” only to enrich the pockets of the talented mathematician. One could hardly doubt that E.Thorp managed to create a real winning strategy!

However, since he could no longer benefit from his discovery himself, he decided to render welfare assistance” to his colleagues having published in 1961 a small article in an American academic journal (Thorp E.O. “A favourable strategy for twenty-one”, Proc.Nat.Acad.Sci., 47, 110-112, (1961)). And despite the small size of the article and, consequently, an extremely condensed form of persentment, made it comprehensible for rather a narrow group of professionals, one can be sure that a number of American scientists and their friends certainly “improved” their material situation (owners of gambling houses were unlikely to read scientific magazines at that time).

Casino gambling can be fun and exciting. At the same time expensive. Dependent on how much you are willing to gamble. It is important to keep in mind your specified budget. As it is very easy to get carried away when you are in the casino, you have to take care that the next thing you know, you haven’t gambled everything away and now you are down to your last penny. Before you get to this scenario, stop, think and walk away or quit casino gambling.

The first rule in casino gambling is to know the game. Casino gambling can be difficult if you are not sure about the rules of a game. For instance, if you want to play baccarat but don’t know exactly what baccarat means it is better to stand back, watch and learn the game first before you try your luck. Another golden rule that you should observe in casino gambling is to not gamble more than you can afford. Always know how much you can spend before you step foot in a casino and don’t risk any more than that.

Do not indulge in casino gambling with the aim to get rich. If you do, you will only be disappointed. And you may lose more money than you care to. Casino gambling should be for fun and entertainment. In casino gambling you should not hand a dealer the loose change. Willingly you place it in the table. If you find that your dealer is rude, then leave the table and play elsewhere. You should not put up with bad service. You can avail yourself of free casino gambling lessons. You could try casino gambling in the morning when there are less people in the casino. You could try casino gambling in the morning when there are lesser people in the casino. This way the dealer could offer you assistance when you are new to the game. In casino gambling you should not up your stakes to cover your losses. You may lose big time if you do. You can up your stakes when you are winning so you use the casino’s money instead of your own.

There are strategies you can use that can reduce the house’s edge but you can never beat the house. Another to watch out in casino gambling is the game called keno. This may be a simple game but the odds are always in favor of the house. If you are new to casino gambling, you should look for a casino that lets you play with lower stakes. This way if you commit mistakes, your losses will be smaller. The posh hotel-casinos located on the Strip in Las Vegas generally have higher minimums compared to those in the downtown area.

Casino gambling is a good way to add some exitement and break the monotony of your life. Casino gambling gives you an opportunity to engage your senses including your mental abilities to focus on the game. Casino gambling can be a good source of entertainment. You should not view casino gambling as a get-rich-quick scheme. But just like any endeavor, it should be taken in moderation. Anything that is done in extremes could be detrimental to the purpose casino gambling is aimed for- which is to provide release of stress and pleasure. Gambling, done in the extreme can become an addiction, so play in moderation and have some fun.

It was a long time before gambling was legalized in the United States. It was not a one time legalization of all gambling games though but a very long process. The legalization process was also different and in various stages for each state. In the end, the government assessed more jobs for employment due to the legalization of gambling. Casino games such as poker, black jack, slot machines were said to be helpful in creating jobs across the United States.

Gaming or the play of various games of chance is reported to be a multi-billion industry that paved the way for the creation of a number of service professions. Gaming can include the usual casino gaming, state lotteries, horse racing, dog racing and even charitable games. The gaming industry created such an impact that it reached the status of an industry. How ironic that an industry that is supported by games of chance could sustain and provide stable jobs for the people.

Almost all workers that cater to the gaming industry are employed in the casinos. These workers have titles and responsibilities that could vary from one casino establishment to another but despite these differences in titles, all workers are basically doing the same thing. Workers could supervise, investigate and conduct surveillance while some of them will be assigned to work directly with the customers or casino players. These workers will perform various activities such as dealing cards or running games, tending the slot machines, handling money and writing or running tickets.

The Gaming Supervisor

The workers mentioned above will not be as organized as they should be without someone to oversee and supervise their day to day activities. This is the job of a gaming supervisor. A casino establishment can have more than one gaming supervisor. Gaming supervisors oversee the operations and workers assigned in a particular area of the casino. They circulate within the area, checking every table available and ensure the fluidity of the games even in the midst of shift changes.

Basically, the gaming supervisors are the workers who usually interact with guests in times of complaints or whenever guests have a hard time to understand the rules or limitations of a particular table game. These people are the ones who toy with ideas or various strategies on how to enliven the atmosphere for the guests while they are staying and playing in the casino. At the same time, they are ready for any inquiries or special requests that guests needs throughout their stay in the casino.

Other Occupations Available In The Gaming Industry

Some of the work occupations available in the gaming industry require a special level of skill. For example, black jack card dealers must be able to deal the cards smoothly and with precision, or else players might think that they are being cheated on the game. The skills indicated here are only useful and unique to casino gaming. Still, other occupations require skills that focus on being able to conduct financial transactions. All in all, these skills are mostly required by workers that are in contact with the guests and players. The workers mentioned above that deals cards or run table games, tends the slot machines, and handles money and tickets will need necessary skills helpful to their trades.

It is worth noting that workers are on shift rotation so each one will experience handling a specific work that will require a necessary skill. Casino establishment usually require their employees to undergo a specialized training that covers the whole casino gaming. In this training, attendees learn to cut a deck of cards smoothly, learn a few tricks with it and be able to deal it effectively along with other special skills.

There are slot key persons assigned in slot key machines that are responsible in overseeing its effective operation and supervising slot key workers. One job of the slot key person is to verify and handle the pay-off winnings of a lucky patron and reset the slot machine or refill its money contents. Another job is to make decisions regarding the repair of the slot machines.

A slot key person must be knowledgeable in different brands of slot machines. They must be able to detect a minor operational glitch in a slot machine and be capable of fixing it. In case of a major operational damage, the slot key person is also the person responsible to decide whether a slot machine needs to be removed from the floor for major repairs. Working in the floor as normal frontline personnel, the slot key persons are tasked to enforce the safety rules of the casino establishment and to report hazards to those concerned.

In operating games such as keno or bingo, there are gaming writers and runners that are tasked to take bets for the game and assist in its operation. These workers operates the device that issues random numbers, announce the numbers selected, pick-up and verify the tickets from the game patrons, calculate and distribute the game winnings.

The gaming dealers, on the other hand, are responsible for the card games such as poker, black jack, craps and roulette. The gaming dealers can be seen standing or sitting behind a table and facing the card game patrons. They will provide the dice and deal the cards to the patrons. During the card game, the gaming dealers will also monitor the patrons for any possible violation of the casino rules. In the card games, the gaming dealers must be highly skilled in their card games and are able to provide excellent customer service, especially in moments when a patron is losing most of his bet money.

The gaming dealers determine the winner of the card game, calculate and pay the winning bet while also collecting the bet money. It is a big advantage for a person that aspires to be a gaming dealer to be competent in at least two card games such as poker or black jack.

After one more year Thorp published a book (I mentioned it at the beginning of the article) in which he rather in details, in the form comprehensible to any even a slightly literate and sensible person, set the rules of formation of a winning strategy. But the publication of the book did not only cause a quick growth of those willing to enrich themselves at the cost of gambling houses’ owners, as well as allowed the latter ones to understand the main reason of effectiveness of the developed by Thorp strategy.

First of all, casinos’ owners understood at last that it was necessary to introduce the following obligatory point into the rules of the game: cards are to be thoroughly shuffled after each game! If this rule is rigorously observed, then a winning strategy of Thorp cannot be applied, since the calculation of probabilities of extracting one or another card from a pack was based on the knowledge of the fact that some cards would already not appear in the game!

But what does it mean to have thoroughly shuffled” cards? Usually in gambling houses the process of thoroughly shuffling” presupposes the process when a croupier, one of the gamblers or, that is still oftener seen of late, a special automatic device makes a certain number of more or less monotonous movements with a pack (the number of which varies from 10 to 20-25, as a rule). Each of these movements changes the arrangement of cards in a pack. As mathematicians say, as a result of each movement with cards a kind of substitution” is made. But is it really so that as a result of such 10-25 movements a pack is thoroughly shuffled, and in particular, if there are 52 cards in a pack then a probability of the fact that, for instance, an upper card will appear to be a queen will be equal to 1/13? In other words, if we will, thus, for example, shuffle cards 130 times, then the quality of our shuffling will turn out to be more thorough” if the number of times of the queen’s appearance on top out of these 130 times will be closer to 10.

Strictly mathematically it is possible to prove that in case our movements appear to be exactly similar (monotonous) then such a method of shuffling cards is not satisfactory. At this it is still worse if the so called “order of substitution” is less, i.e. less is the number of these movements (substitutions) after which the cards are located in the same order they were from the start of a pack shuffling. In fact, if this number equals to t, then repeating exactly similar movements any number of times we, for all our wish, can not get more t different positioning of cards in a pack, or, using mathematical terms, not more t different combinations of cards.

Certainly, in reality, shuffling of cards does not come down to recurrence of the same movements. But even if we assume that a shuffling person (or an automatic device) makes casual movements at which there can appear with a certain probability all possible arrangements of cards in a pack at each single movement, the question of “quality” of such mixing turns out to be far from simple. This question is especially interesting from the practical point of view that the majority of notorious crooked gamblers achieve phenomenal success using the circumstance, that seemingly “careful shuffling” of cards actually is not such!

Mathematics helps to clear a situation with regard to this issue as well. In the work Gambling and Probability Theory” A.Reni presents mathematical calculations allowing him to draw the following practical conclusion: ” If all movements of a shuffling person are casual, so, basically, while shuffling a pack there can be any substitution of cards, and if the number of such movements is large enough, reasonably it is possible to consider a pack “carefully reshuffled”. Analyzing these words, it is possible to notice, that, firstly, the conclusion about “quality” of shuffling has an essentially likelihood character (“reasonably”), and, secondly, that the number of movements should be rather large (A.Reni prefers not to consider a question of what is understood as “rather a large number”). It is clear, however, that the necessary number at least a sequence higher than those 10-25 movements usually applied in a real game situation. Besides, it is not that simple “to test” movements of a shuffling person (let alone the automatic device) for “accidence”!

Summing it all up, let’s come back to a question which has been the headline of the article. Certainly, it would be reckless to think that knowledge of maths can help a gambler work out a winning strategy even in such an easy game like twenty-one. Thorp succeeded in doing it only by using imperfection (temporary!) of the then used rules. We can also point out that one shouldn’t expect that maths will be able to provide a gambler at least with a nonlosing strategy. But on the other hand, understanding of mathematical aspects connected with gambling games will undoubtedly help a gambler to avoid the most unprofitable situations, in particular, not to become a victim of fraud as it takes place with the problem of cards shuffling”, for example. Apart from that, an impossibility of creation of a winning strategy for all “cases” not in the least prevents a mathematically advanced” gambler to choose whenever possible the best” decision in each particular game situation and within the bounds allowed by “Dame Fortune” not only to enjoy the very process of the Game, as well as its result.

Nobody comes to a casino simply because they want to have fun. Underneath this vague reason is the desire to bring home cash, and lots of it. Indeed, casino gambling is a way to get your hands on lots of cash in a short time. However, it can also be the way to lose cash in an even shorter time. The thing with casino gambling is that the games have different pay-out rates. For example, spending half an hour in the slots will not help you reach the hundred dollar mark unless you win the jackpot. But if you go and spend time at the roulette table, you can reach the 200-dollar mark without waiting for 30 minutes. Likewise, you could lose all your casino gambling money at the roulette table in a shorter time than it will take you to lose $10 at the slots.

The trick to maximize casino gambling profits is to choose the right games to play. High pay-out games usually give you more money for limited funds. However, skill is highly needed in playing these games. Being a novice and attempting this game with the more experienced players only make you lose your funds. The rules may vary in different casinos, but still the most favored high-paying games are blackjack and video poker.

Depending on your casino’s blackjack rules, blackjack is a game wherein a player can expect high returns providing he plays wisely. There are many variations in blackjack rules like the number of card decks, splitting and doubling bets, and other rule variations. Years back, most casino gambling websites offer great odds. If played strategically, the player even gets valuable advantage. However, rules change and now, the odds are in the casino’s side regardless of the player’s strategy. So to ensure good pay-outs in playing blackjacks, it is to your favor to seriously consider being an advance blackjack player.

Of course, not everyone is born with jacks and aces in their hands. But learning good blackjack strategy is easy. There are many free and downloadable blackjack software tools that you can download and practice on. Also, blackjack books are available at most bookstores. These books are usually authored by top blackjack players who have gained fame and fortune in playing the game. Don’t frown because nothing is easy these days. Being a winner requires effort, so that at least you can enjoy yourself doing it. With regular blackjack practice, you could soon be the next casino gambling blackjack king.

Video poker is another casino gambling game that has a reputation for high pay-outs. However, like blackjacks, video poker rules and pay-out schemes vary among casinos. Examining the casino’s pay tables is important before starting video poker, or any game for that matter. Usually, there are different video poker machines at a given casino. Be sure to choose the one with best pay tables, otherwise, you’re just giving the casino your money without a fight. Good pay tables are assurance that the game you’re playing actually favors you.

Good video poker machines usually allow over a hundred percent return the longer you play the game. Also, despite being similar to slot machines, video poker is not a game of chance. This means that you have an actual advantage depending on your skills. Consequently, you cannot play the game and expect a high pay-out without understanding the basic rules and arming yourself with useful techniques. Casino gambling is fun, but it does entail some work.

Most casino gambling websites and traditional casinos offer both games. Betting experience and game skills improve your chances of winning the games and getting high pay-outs. Though playing requires effort in learning the games and mastering the skills, it does have its rewards. Besides, casino gambling is more fun if you go home laden with cash than big debts.